The present disclosure relates generally to computer storage systems, and more particularly to methods and systems for managing contextual information for data stored on such storage systems.
Computer systems regularly store data in the form of files on storage systems associated with such computer systems. Various applications that run on the computing system often access such files. The applications may perform a variety of access operations such as opening a file, reading from a file, writing to a file, and closing a file. Generally, for security purposes, applications themselves are not able to access a file directly. Instead, applications use standard libraries or Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that use well defined functions to access certain files. An API may use a system call to invoke the services of the kernel. The kernel controls which applications have access to which data. The kernel then accesses the file on behalf of the application.
To help maintain compatibility between computing systems, various standards may be used. One such standard is the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX). POSIX is a family of standards that define APIs for use by an operating system. It is desirable to be able to obtain useful information about the data stored on a POSIX compliant storage system.